Blizzard ANZ Heroes of the Storm Open Division

Coinciding with the launch of HGC ANZ Premier, the Blizzard ANZ HotS Open Division launches on 28 February and runs in parallel with Premier. During Phase 1, teams will have eight match nights over nine weeks, played on Wednesday nights from 7:30pm AEDT, to earn points towards their season standings. At the end of Phase 1, the top two teams by points will advance to the Blizzard ANZ Promotion/Relegation tournament, where they will compete with the bottom two teams from the Premier Division for a spot in the HGC ANZ Premier Phase 2. In addition, participating teams will all receive rewards from Blizzard ANZ in the form of digital swag.

Gamestah is pleased to present the Blizzard ANZ HotS Open Division!

VODs for each match that is streamed are available on GamestahTV on YouTube, with link to be advised after the opening night matches have been uploaded.

1 League Format

The Open Division will run weekly on Wednesday nights, starting from 28/02/2018. Each week, four (4) rounds of Swiss Bracket matches will be played. Teams accumulate points towards their League standing by winning matches.

Teams are not required to enter every week, but are encouraged to do so to maximize their points accumulation. In addition, teams are not required to play in every Swiss round, but will only accumulate points for matches that they do play. Note that any team that is not able to start a match within 10 minutes of the official round start (as notified by Tournament admins in Discord) will forfeit their match and any points for that round.

All Swiss bracket matches will be best-of-one (bo1) and maps will be specified.

1.1 Map Rotation

The following maps are to be played during each round of the tournament:

Week 1

Round 1

Battlefield of Eternity

Round 2

Braxis Holdout

Round 3

Cursed Hollow

Round 4

Dragon Shire

Week 2

Round 1

Infernal Shrines

Round 2

Sky Temple

Round 3

Tomb of the Spider Queen

Round 4

Towers of Doom

Week 3

Round 1

Volskaya Foundry

Round 2

Battlefield of Eternity

Round 3

Braxis Holdout

Round 4

Cursed Hollow

Week 4

Round 1

Dragon Shire

Round 2

Infernal Shrines

Round 3

Sky Temple

Round 4

Tomb of the Spider Queen

BREAK

Week 5

Round 1

Towers of Doom

Round 2

Volskaya Foundry

Round 3

Battlefield of Eternity

Round 4

Braxis Holdout

Week 6

Round 1

Cursed Hollow

Round 2

Dragon Shire

Round 3

Infernal Shrines

Round 4

Sky Temple

Week 7

Round 1

Tomb of the Spider Queen

Round 2

Towers of Doom

Round 3

Volskaya Foundry

Round 4

Battlefield of Eternity

Week 8

Round 1

Braxis Holdout

Round 2

Cursed Hollow

Round 3

Dragon Shire

Round 4

Infernal Shrines

2 Tournament Schedule

Tournament nights are Wednesday nights starting 28 February 2018 and ending 25 April 2018, with a break in week 5 of the competition:

Weekly tournament nights will start at 7:30 pm AEDT. Sign-ups for each tournament will open at midnight on the Thursday the week before, and close at 5pm AEDT on Tournament Wednesdays.

Teams earn League points for each win earned during Swiss bracket matches. One point per win is awarded. All points earned each week are added to the team’s Leaderboard record.

After 9 weeks of regular play (including the break week), the two teams with the most points qualify for the Blizzard ANZ Promotion/Relegation Tournament.

Should tiebreakers be required, the head-to-head record of tied teams will be used. Should the head-to-head record be tied, a bo3 tiebreaker match will be played.

4 Prizes and Fees

4.1 Entry Fee

Entry is free.

4.2 Prizes

All teams that participate in all eight match nights will be rewarded by Blizzard ANZ. Prizes will be announced soon.

5 Broadcasting

All matches will be broadcast by Gamestah on http://twitch.tv/gamestahtv1. Teams that enter the tournament will be required to play their matches on the scheduled match nights.

Each round, Gamestah Tournament Administrators will select a match to be broadcast. Teams that are chosen for broadcast may not begin their match without the express permission of tournament admins. Any match that is started without this permission will be required to restart, regardless of match progress.

Any match that has not been selected for broadcast by Tournament Admins may be streamed by participants in those matches, provided the streaming is from the player’s point-of-view (no spectators) and providing the stream has a 2 minute delay configured. Failure to meet these requirements will result in the match that is being streamed being forfeited.

6 Tournament Admin

All Open Division tournaments will be run using Toornament.com. Players should be familiar with Toornament’s interface as they will be required to submit match results after the match is completed. It is essential that match results are entered as soon as the match is complete to allow the next round of the Swiss bracket to be generated.